Clean up of some forums

[hallsofvallhalla]

I cleaned up some categories not being used. Specifically some in New Worlds Engine being that it is seemingly dead. I combined others as well. I did this for a clean up as well as I am adding in a new section on my new project I have been secretly working on called Simple PBBG. It is basically a very easy to use PBBG maker much in the fashion of NWE but built around beginners. It still can make any game you want but it simplifies the building. It also takes a different approach than the many engine s like this. It plays more in the fashion of a living breathing world but can be tailored to anything you want.

I am also working with Alain on his new engine Dot World Maker and I plan on adding a few things here for that. Specifically a game contest we plan on holding. A lot of fun new stuff coming to the forums very soon!

[a_bertrand]

Great work hallsofvallhalla! Thanks for all that

[Kesstryl]

I can't wait to see your PBBG builder. I was upset that the NWE owner appears to have abandoned the project, and we really do need a new PBBG builder.

[a_bertrand]

But what would you expect from a PBBG builder? What is not already offered in some or other form?

[hallsofvallhalla]

When it comes to a true PBBG there is not much out there at all.

[a_bertrand]

Odd I thought there was quite a lot in PHP. Plus honestly I find all those game way too similar for my own taste.

[Kesstryl]

At one point there probably were, but not anymore. I think it's going the way of a niche following and will soon be seen as retro, if it not already is.

[Jackolantern]

From creating my big PBBG engine list that seems to be the case, and I even talked about it here. PBBG interest seems to be fading away. I personally believe that this drop has been due to the increased possibilities of HTML5 + node.js. Text-based PBBGs used to be the best you could do in the browser without a plugin since you didn't have two-way socket communication or real-time animation capabilities. But now with the barrier to entry being lowered for more complex games it seems that PBBGs have suffered.

[Kesstryl]

From creating my big PBBG engine list that seems to be the case, and I even talked about it here. PBBG interest seems to be fading away. I personally believe that this drop has been due to the increased possibilities of HTML5 + node.js. Text-based PBBGs used to be the best you could do in the browser without a plugin since you didn't have two-way socket communication or real-time animation capabilities. But now with the barrier to entry being lowered for more complex games it seems that PBBGs have suffered.

I think there's still an audience for PBBGs though, and they are a great place to begin for people just starting out in web game dev, even if to learn just the basics of php, javascript, and html. Just as retro 8 bit games have made a come back, nostalgia never dies, and people will still play PBBGs. Not every brand new awesome game has to have flashy animations and moving parts. Look at the success of Flight Rising (a static image pet game featuring dragons). I agree with you about why PBBGs are not common or popular right now, but I don't think they will ever completely die.

[Jackolantern]

Oh, definitely. I don't think they will ever die either. And that doesn't mean people shouldn't make them, play them, run them, etc. It just means that they aren't as popular as they were a few years ago. Neither are 4X games. With the 4X genre what you see is the core fanbase grows smaller but more dedicated. You lose some of the casual players who come to these games due to word-of-mouth or buzz and instead have players who get deep into them and may play a single game for years. I expect something like this to happen to PBBGs as well.

So there is absolutely no reason to avoid making a PBBG just because they are growing less popular. The number of players may decrease but the number of games do, too, so the opportunities don't really change. In fact, when the genre was much more popular hobbyists had to compete against companies with large budgets. We saw a few large-budget PBBGs appear, too. And pretty much all of those games are now gone, collapsing in on themselves as soon as the giant hose of players started to slow due to the number of players they needed to sustain their budget.